“But for heaven’s sake, what has Vinzi done?” she asked anxiously. “It is not a bit like him. What did he do, Vinzenz? Please tell me; did he really do some wrong?”
“Ask him yourself what he has done. It is enough for me to have to hear from a neighbor that it would be better for my boy to have something to do instead of running into other people’s houses and fooling around. That a thing like that should be said to me! Matters have gone on long enough now, and this is the end. I am simply going to send him away.”
In his agitation Vinzenz Lesa had risen from his chair but after walking once across the room, he came back to his seat.
“I can’t understand what has happened,” said the woman, when he was sitting beside her again, after she had been able to think a little. “It certainly is not Vinzi’s way to go into people’s houses without a cause; there must have been a reason. Let us first talk to the boy and ask him why he did it, for it is not fair to judge him otherwise. He is sure to tell us the truth. But think, Vinzenz, what it would be to send away a twelve year old boy! He is much too young for that.”
“I won’t stop you from talking to him,” replied the husband, “but one thing is clear. He simply has to go. I have thought of it for a long while and now the time has come. He must go to a place where there is no possible chance for him to hear such nonsense. He must go where there are few people, but the kind who get full pleasure from their work. I mean people who stay by themselves and who do not sit together with strangers.”
“But the first thing of all should be to know the people,” the wife interrupted eagerly. “I hope you do not mean to send Vinzi to the first person who happens to like his work on a farm.”
“Easy, easy, I am coming to that,” the man continued in a calm voice. “You know that I went up to the Simplon last fall where a cousin of mine, Lorenz Lesa, lives. Well, he has a fine farm with a few splendid cows, and though it isn’t big, everything is in excellent order. I liked it up there and I’ll send the boy to him. Vinzi may still come out all right if he sees other boys who are happy and content in that kind of life.”
“Is it really possible that you mean to send the boy so far away!” cried out the woman with a wail, “so high up into the mountains? It must be dreadfully lonely up there. I can’t even imagine what things would be like. I don’t know either your cousin or his wife. How could they be expected to receive the boy? You send him to them like a good-for-nothing with whom one can do nothing more at home. It would seem as if our Vinzi had become a criminal who had to be sent into banishment.”
“You need not get excited, woman,” retorted the man, “the change is not to be a punishment but a means of bringing him around. My cousin Lorenz is a good, sensible man who won’t treat him badly, and Cousin Josepha is a splendid woman who is bringing up her three boys in such a way that it gives one pleasure to look at them. I saw them right in the midst of their cows and I never heard such singing and jokes and such cracking of whips. They seem to have an eternal holiday. Don’t you believe yourself that our boy might change in such surroundings and realize how lucky he is to have been born to be a farmer? Nothing better could possibly happen to him than to go.”
The woman said nothing more, but she was far from convinced that Vinzi would feel at home among boys so different. She could not help wondering what the cousins would think of Vinzi’s rather odd ways. Many other thoughts disturbed her, but she knew how useless they were. Of course Vinzi had to go and she knew no other place to send him to. She asked her husband how soon they could hear whether their relations would take the boy, and when Vinzi would have to leave them. So her husband told her that he had clearly shown Lorenz how he liked the boys and had admitted how much he wished his boy were happy and bright, too, instead of being so dreamy. Lorenz had asked him then and there to send Vinzi to him for a summer whenever he wanted to. In the gay company of the other boys he might wake up. Lorenz also promised to do his share, as happy boys appealed to him much more than obstinate ones.